Labor accused of giving grants to groups backing carbon tax

David Wroe

GREEN groups that formed the backbone of the ''Say Yes'' campaign supporting the government's carbon tax have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded grants, bureaucrats told a Senate estimates committee yesterday.

The groups were key members of a campaign that has backed a price on carbon, which the government will introduce in July after getting its legislation past its major parliamentary hurdle last week.

The revelations came as officials acknowledged the government had spent $24 million on a carbon tax advertising campaign - double the amount the Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, announced in June.

Simon Birmingham, a Liberal senator who led the questioning, branded the grants to the environmental groups ''a cheer squad slush fund''.

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''Millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being wasted on a failed spin job,'' he said of the ads. ''Worse still, Labor is conveniently using 'discretionary grants' to repay groups who have been the loudest supporters of its carbon tax.''

The Australian Conservation Foundation received $398,000 for its Climate Reality Australia program, a series of 2000 public presentations around the country, modelled on the former US vice-president Al Gore's ''climate change leadership program''.

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition received $271,000 for two recent climate conferences, one in Perth and one in Brisbane, called Power Shift 2011.

The Climate Institute received $250,000 for an independent assessment of the effect of the carbon price on Australians' cost of living, the results of which will be available next month.

The groups defended the funding yesterday, saying it had been used strictly for the specified projects and had nothing to do with the ''Say Yes'' campaign. ''Say Yes'' included events at Parliament House and attracted the imprimatur of former prime minster Malcolm Fraser and former Liberal leader John Hewson, among others. The groups pointed out that information on the grants was published on the department's website in August.

A spokesman for Mr Combet said the Coalition was being ''hypocritical''.

''On the one hand, they claim to accept the climate science and to support action to tackle climate change,'' he said. ''But, on the other hand, they criticise the government for providing the public with information about climate change and how to reduce carbon pollution and improve energy efficiency.''